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Market cheers US ceasefire; Nifty up 24 points, 859.30

The stoppage of attacks by the United States and Britian on Iraq boosted market sentiments on the National Stock Exchange changing the bearish trend into a cheerful market today.

The market opened on a buoyant note and improved further during the trading session with the significant raise in the prices of pivotals.

Reflecting the bullish trend, the S&P CNX Nifty opened at 845.60 points, touched the day's high of 859.55 points, low of 845.25 before closing at 859.30 points, showing a net gain of 24.10 points from the previous close of 835.20 points.

The CNX Nifty Junior shot up by 44.85 points to 1458.25 points as against the previous close of 1413.40 points.

S&P CNX Defty closed higher by 19.60 points to 699.85 points as against last Friday's close of 569.23 points.

S&P CNX-500 and Midcap-200 rose by 14.94 and 13.03 points to 584.17 and 525.30 points from the previous close of 569.23 and 512.27 points respectively.

Total turnover on the NSE reported during the day at Rs 17.71 billion was came from trading of 64.81 million shares in 219,616 trades. Debentures traded value stood at Rs 5.94 million.

Today, 646 equities advanced, 309 declined and 119 remain unchanged while 49 securities hit their price bands.

Satyam Computer topped the list of turnover by registering highest turnover of Rs 3.76 billion, followed by Zee Telefilms Rs 2.66 billion, Pentafour Software Rs 1.89 billion, ITC Rs 1.72 billion and Telco Rs 862.4 million.

Other actively traded counters were Reliance (Rs 691.1 million), Silverline (Rs 466.2 million), SBI (Rs 446.4 million), Castrol (Rs 400.9 million), HFL HP (Rs 392.8 million), Square D Software (Rs 285.1 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 231.4 million), Dabur (Rs 226.7 million), NIIT (Rs 215.5 million), ACC (Rs 215.2 million), Hindustan Lever (Rs 199.7 million), Tata Tea (Rs 184.3 million), Tisco (Rs 165.8 million), L&T (Rs 131.3 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 130.5 million), MTNL (Rs 126.7 million), Raymond (Rs 109.8 million), Bajaj Auto (Rs 92.5 million) and Nestle (Rs 86.5 million).

Top five S&P CNX Nifty gainers were Telco Rs 152.75 (Rs 141.40), Tisco Rs 105.20 (Rs 97.40), Cipla Rs 864 (Rs 800), Infosys Technologies Rs 2887.95 (Rs 2674) and IPCL Rs 57.90 (Rs 53.80). The losers were Orient Bank Rs 36.30 (Rs 36.75) and Smithkline Beecham Rs 552.70 (Rs 556.00).

The foreign institutional investors were net sellers and sold shares worth Rs 48.6 million on the NSE while the Indian financial institutional investors/mutual funds were net buyers and made net purchases worth Rs 29 million.

The wholesale debt market of the NSE witnessed trades worth Rs 1.21 billion. The 11.40 per cent government loan maturing in 2000 was traded for Rs 250 million at a weighted yield of 11.31 per cent. The zero coupon government stock maturing in 2000 (Series III) was traded for Rs 300 million at a weighted yield of 11.33 per cent. Commercial paper of IPCL Limited and Kodak Limited maturing on February 4, 1999 were traded for Rs 50 million each at a yield of 10.25 per cent.

UNI

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